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Title: Individualism. Author: John Arthur Andrews Date: 1896 Language: en Topics: Individualism, anarcho-communism, communism, firebrand, 19th century, property Source: http://firebrandpdx.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/firebrand-v2-n34.pdf Notes: Original publication: The Firebrand VOL. II. No. 34. PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER, 27 1896. Scanned from Original.
I AM an Individualist and a Communist, and I am a Communist because I am
an Individualist. What State Socialists call Individualism is as much so
as the "free labor" of the capitalist language (non-union, and
especially blackleg labor) is really free labor. What certain opponents
of the State who are not Communists call Individualism is no more so
than the "free labor" spoken of by the denouncers of prison-made goods
is free labor.
What I consider a condition of Individualism is one in which each
individual decides his own doings for himself on his own judgement of
the circumstances which appear to concern him. I claim that so far as I
am concerned, and I mean to the whole extent of my being concerned also,
no matter how many people may be concerned also, it is for me to decide
exactly what I will do, be, have, use, favor, tolerate, or resent,
according to how I perceive and feel and think from moment to moment in
the circumstances about me. It is for me to act fraternally because I
find it the most natural thing to do, and not because other people have
decided that it is the proper thing. It is for me to resent because I
feel resentment and not because other people or even I myself have
previously defined a certain thing to be wrong. It is for me to live out
my own life in my own way, and on that account - because I will not have
anything but my real way of seeing and feeling and thinking about
things - because I decline to perceive and feel and think according to a
prescribed or conventional plan, or any lines not prompted by my nature
as being who and what I am - I decline to acknowledge property. It is so
far as I am concerned a matter of what I find to be my whole self's way
of regarding things, wheter and why I shall on a given occasion use or
abstain from using a certain thing, wheter and why I shall be for,
against, or indifferent to this or that person using it, abstaining from
using it, or being prevented from using it. Property teaches that I and
I only have a right to some things or some quantities of things, and
someone erse to some other things, and that I have no right to these
things, nor he to the former. I reply, it is as I perceive and feel and
think at the moment, according to the circumstances of the moment,
wheter I want to use the first things or not, wheter I want to use the
second things or not, wheter another person using what you say are my
things aggrieves me or not, wheter his using what you say are his things
pleases me or not, and also what I am going to do about it. Further, I
presume that the same is the case with him. Therefore I conclude that he
and I will either harmonise in our doings without property, or fail to
harmonise with each other (or with our own natures if we seem outwardly
to harmonise in our doings) with property. In any case property is
something imposed instead of our natures. I want to reserve something
for myself because in the circumstances it is natural for me to do so;
you say on the contrary that there is some sacred affinity between me
and it, or some sacred incompatibility. I don't want to reserve it - you
still say the same thing. According to you, if I don't want to reserve
it, and you say it is mine, I ought to feel just as much aggrieved if
you come along and take it as if I did want it, and you, knowing that,
but not caring, forcibly or by stealth deprived me of it. According to
you, I ought to feel just as loth to use something when by doing so I
should not be depriving another person of any use he expected (or when
he didn't expect to use it at all), provided you say it is his, as if I
should be sending all his purposes and expectations and opportunities to
total ruin.
That seems a mad sort of thing to me, and I much prefer to remain sane;
I value my individuality too highly to sacrifice it to such nonsense. In
short, I am an uncompromising Individualist; I decide for myself my own
relation and attitude towards other people in respect of things, and I
neither require nor suffer any doctrine or dogma to decide for me.
Therefore I absolutely and utterly repudiate the Property Idea. What I
want on the whole to keep to myself I will keep for the reason that I
want to - at any rate while I both want to and can; what I want to take
I will take, simply because, all things considered, I want to do so;
what I want to respect other people's need of, I will let them keep if
they have it, or try and get it for them if they havn't, for the sole
reason that this is what I want to do; and I want other people to act in
the same free way, because I have confidence that I can get along all
right with humanity, and I don't want to knock up against a System just
when I think I am dealing with pure human individuals.
Accoringly, as a consistent Individualist, I am necessarily in the
nature of things, a Communist.
J. A. Andrews.
P.S.- The important thing to me is to do as I like because I like; the
important thing to other people about that, is what it is that I like to
do. Their appreciations of this will go a good way to determine what
they like to do. Consequently there will be most chances of survival for
those who not only passively harmonise, but by nature actively help each
other for the sake of the friendly interest they feel in each other -
that is, because they want to. So that not only the plunder-likers but
the property-likers are doomed to become extinct. Private property is
the diseased reaction against the excess of ancient communitarism - not
communism - from which relief has wrongly sought in personal priviledge
instead of in liberty. J.A.A.